The Practice of Jesus
Ordinary Time
Introduction:
From Hope to Engagement
: The early chapters of Mark's "good news" which are read during the period of "ordinary time," tell the beginnings of Jesus' energising.
The texts of the feast of Epiphany, make clear that in God's sight there are no distinctions that make some people clean and others unclean, nor differences that leave some people outside the circle of God's concern. The story moves from the coming of the Magi, to Jesus' baptism by John, to the call of the first disciples and the beginning of Jesus' ministry.
: The readings from the gospel of Mark suggests a distinctive way to understand Jesus' ministry as "THE Messiah". The First Testament readings clarify the scriptural origins of the Messianic imagery and the expectations and the customs and texts used in the other readings. The First Testament and the gospel texts are paired, showing that Jesus fulfilled the ancient promises made to the Hebrew people. Although the Second Testament readings from Corinthians are not specifically linked to the gospel and First Testament readings, they offer a look at issues in the early church and give a provocative contrast - both to the gospel story and our own story!
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1:
Epiphany
: Epiphany marks the recognition that Jesus came to ALL people! His mission (and ours too) was also a "mission to the Gentiles". That is another way of saying that God made our world without barriers of hostility between people and that Christian disciples are expected to be signs of that wholeness!!: Not only is the door open to welcome the Magi / strangers of the world who come to worship; the Messiah also moves around Galilee dealing with local people, urban priests, Roman soldiers and Greek visitors. The account of Jesus' baptism by John, links Him to the prophetic tradition. His announcing "the reigning of God" means that the "Son of Righteousness" had arrived! However, it was not a time of economic and social justice reserved only for the Hebrew people, or a time of international political or religious power for them.
It was to be a time of peace for the human family!!
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2:
The Baptism of the LORD
In His baptism, Jesus was linked not only to the prophetic tradition but to the royal tradition in Israel. Prophets anointed kings with oil (1 K.19:15-16) and God would take the king as son (2 S.7:14). It was the responsibility of the king to be righteous and he had the power to be just. Jesus' baptism with water in the River Jordan also recalls Joshua, who led the new people of Israel across the Jordan into the Promised Land. Jesus, the new Joshua, would call a people into service in a new community.top
3:
Engaging our hopes
This announcing of God's reigning in Mark, begins at a time when no newness seemed possible. While the story of Jesus' birth and baptism represents hope, it is His words of invitation to would-be disciples that begins the practical engagement of the possibilities of hope with the world of despair!In Mark, Jesus is presented as the One who makes this difference! His disciples noticed life strangely changed. It is changed in ways that did not wait for royal or imperial approval. This newness didn't happen the way administered things happen! And Mark senses "hardness of heart" can stop this newness. Where belief is lacking, Jesus can't energise (Mk.6:5-6). This movement from hope to engagement, is summarized in chapter 7 of Luke's gospel:
The blind see again, the lame walk,
those suffering from virulent skin-diseases
are cleansed, and the deaf hear,
the dead are raised to life, and the good news
is proclaimed to the poor. (Luke 7:22 NJB)
Mostly, we don't live in a world where the blind see again, where the lame walk freely, or the deaf hear!! The gospel stories are so familiar that our astonishment is blunted. For us, such evidence points to medical cures. But when Jesus is asked, "Are you the one to come?" He directs John the Baptist's attention to His social impact. Listeners with understanding of Hebrew tradition, would recognise in Jesus' answer, terms used by prophets. The prophet Isaiah, expressing a conviction of a future Hebrew community that would be more life-giving than the present one, uses much the same terms (Is.35:5).
What did Jesus mean - to restore sight, to cleanse lepers and raise the dead? Isaiah indicates that a condition of blindness characterises the whole people and not just isolated members of society (Is.6:10). To affirm as Jesus did, that the general conditions of blindness, lameness and uncleanness, have been reversed, contradicts the existing norms, or moral distinctions, on which the old society was controlled! With the calling into question these moral distinctions, the rationale for justifying the existing political and economic inequalities, are gone!
The list includes the unthinkable, ultimate energising of human persons out of death! Life from death is brought into daily reality. The last work listed in chapter 7 of Luke is economic rehabilitation (Lk.7:22). That is, the poor have their debts cancelled and their property restored. That means an end to royal confiscations! That's even more radical than life from death!! If managers of cleanness and uncleanness; the overseers of the debt laws; and the officers of death, all have their authority over-ridden, they are obviously no longer in power. In their eyes, the energising of Jesus, is a scandal. His actions violate propriety, reason and good public order. Jesus' story moves, from criticising, to energising towards a new future! It is a future given where none was thinkable. It is energising in the tradition of Moses and the Prophets - and then some!!
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4:
To Empower as Jesus Did
When Mark begins his narrative he present Jesus acting as a prophet (Mk.1:15). Then, in the course of this activity, Jesus approaches fishers, a tax collector & others, inviting them to follow Him (Mark 1:16:20 & 2:13 & 3:13ff). In this Jesus takes on a new identity - that of "Master of the Living Torah", whose energies are directed towards a systematic apprenticing of disciples in His skills - of doing God's future!As today's would-be disciples, we too receive systematic instruction in these same performance skills in hearing the Sunday readings in the Christian assembly. Week-by-week we receive some portion of "good news". This "hearing" enables us to make new discoveries. It can transform our dumbness, blindness and lameness!! Such new discoveries can even change our mature commitments!
The temptation for us is that we would prefer a quick-fix course and would not be prepared for a long-haul apprenticeship through listening regularly to the readings from the scriptures at Mass, or reading the scriptures themselves whether as part of a study-group or privately, or by failing to take advantage of whatever means are available to deepen our understanding of the good news.
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5
The Good News
When Jesus Calls would-be disciples to "become fishers" (Third Sunday of Ordinary Time) the call is framed in words that acknowledge what His would-be disciples were already doing. Their knowledge of the lure, the patient waiting, the measured guess-work, the movement of wind and currents, the work of landing the quarry - all these things will be taken up into more of the same thing - but now with a human catch!But our temptation is to consider our faith-doings in a fragile contrast to our more robust and concrete normal experiences. We can fail to recognise our given capacities for faith. Jesus invited His "fishers" not to give up their profession entirely, but to become fishers of sorts. He invited them to foster and fan those settled skills and instincts.
We can ignore the opportunities to imitate these performance skills of the Master offered in the present time through regular and systematic presentation of the gospel by the Church. But these skills are also fostered in the rhythms and experience of faithful daily living.
The gospel of the Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time gives the impression that Jesus was free of "static" in giving His message. But Mark is describing the early stages of Jesus' ministry before people had a chance; to pick over His words, to detract from the content of what He said, to supply shady motives for His words. They will soon enough! And like these early hearers of His message - so will we. But what Jesus preached was no doubt partly learned from the people to whom He preached. The human dynamics of teacher and apprentice include filtering, distorting and correcting as a normal part of passing on the tradition.
The texts for the Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time suggest an ending of a doomed social reality and the beginning of a surprising new reality. The new reality is offered through Jesus' performance skills of doing God's future. Our tendency is to disregard God's purpose and to regard our present social reality as the only way things can be. Yet the texts affirm that the comings and goings of everyday life is the proper arena for God's reigning. We find it difficult to see beyond our own settled ways. We reduce God's reigning to private, so-called "spiritual matters of healing."
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